Chapter 174
Chapter 174
Chapter 174
Uriel (2)
"Raihon... Even so, I never thought he would interfere to this extent..."
A dome-shaped barrier spread across a diameter of about 3 kilometers.
That barrier blocking the spread of Caron's shadow was deployed with all their might by the gods under Garganta's command.
"But that won't last long either. With power gained through the sacrifice of believers... they cannot stop me until the end."
Caron's shadow expands infinitely until it covers this entire planet.
Unless Raihon or other high-ranking gods draw upon power with the same resolve as Caron, it was rare for even gods to pledge loyalty to their superiors while risking their very existence.
"So if I just deal with you lot, everything will be resolved."
"Here, eat this."
Rudian gave Caron the middle finger.
No matter how threatening Caron and the gods of the pantheon might be, this side has three Colorful Worlds.
Moreover, their owners are those with sufficient capability to draw out the power of those Colorful Worlds.
"Insolent...!"
Caron, who had been writhing in the shadows, spat out anger.
"The ground you stand on is already no different from my divine body! I'll devour you as you are!"
Aaaahhh!
Like a tidal wave crashing in, Caron's shadow surged from the ground and swept over Rudian and his party just like that.
With Blamir lending a hand to strengthen Caron's shadow, a literal hell on earth was created, no different from a dark red bloody pool.
"Be careful not to get swallowed!"
Rudian quietly called out a warning toward the back.
He knew that if they got caught up in those shadows, even if they wouldn't be absorbed, it would be quite difficult to escape.
However, while watching Caron's shadow crash over them, for some reason, Rudian couldn't sense even the slightest disturbance from Maria and Rebecca who were on either side of him.
"Don't worry, Rudian."
Maria stepped forward and raised her finger.
"I'll protect you."
Then she uttered spirit words and began to fully activate the power of the Green World.
"I freeze the time of this place."
Hwaaak!
The moment those words ended, the tidal wave of dark red shadows that had been crashing toward them terrifyingly stopped as if by magic.
"...You stopped the power of a god?"
At the suddenly unfolding situation, Rudian gaped in shock.
Moreover, it wasn't just Caron's shadow that had stopped.
Even the gods under North who had been charging toward this place were unable to move as if trapped in ice!
"H-how did you do that?"
Simply controlling ordinary power and controlling power imbued with divinity are problems of different dimensions.
It was too great a miracle to dismiss with words like "it just worked out."
"...Hmm, just?"
But Maria truly thought so.
"If I had used it outside, the entire continent would have stopped... It's fortunate that they put up a barrier so the power wouldn't leak out."
"......"
"I'm handling too much power so I'm still a bit inexperienced. If I experience actual combat a few more times, I think I'll become sufficiently familiar with it."
The part where Rudian could be said to have made a mistake until now was that he had set Maria's maximum capability according to Chapter 2.
Subconsciously thinking that the power of that period was Maria's prime, he hadn't thought to look into the realm beyond that.
'If Maria now builds up her power to the Chapter 4 period...'
In this world, a truly unprecedented balance breaker might be born.
"Amazing."
"R-really? I didn't know you'd be surprised by this much..."
Maria scratched her slightly reddened cheek with her index finger at Rudian's dumbfounded praise.
"Ah, really! That's what I wanted to say!"
Then suddenly Rebecca, who had been beside them, burst out angrily and squeezed between Rudian and Maria.
Then she stretched her hand toward the front and began to emit crimson power.
"Even if you're my sister, I can't tolerate cutting in line."
Blimia Contamination!
Hwaaak!
The power that burst from Rebecca's body stretched out in tendrils and began to take root in Caron's shadow.
Then it began to change the dark red domain into the crimson that Rebecca wielded!
'Domain domination!'
Caron's shadow was immediately becoming subordinate to Rebecca's will.
And that wasn't all.
Caron's shadow that Rebecca had devoured developed into the 'Domain of Gluttony' and began to mercilessly suck up the enemies' power.
In other words, she began to devour the power of Caron and the other gods!
"Kraaaaaaak!"
A situation where movement was restricted while power was mercilessly stolen.
"H-how can a mere human!"
As the divinity connected to the main body was endlessly sucked into Rebecca without reason, Rudian became flustered instead.
"W-wait!"
"Hm? Why?"
At Rudian's restraint, Rebecca tilted her head innocently.
"A-are you okay?"
"I'm okay though?"
Even while absorbing Caron's divinity, Rebecca nodded with a bright smile, showing no signs of strain at all.
"Really?"
"Yes, really!"
It wasn't a joke - the amount of power Rebecca was currently sucking in was approaching the total amount of life energy that demons in the past had gathered to open large-scale dimensional gates.
"Hmm, as expected, I'm gradually reaching my limits."
Though she said it was difficult, Rebecca's power remained crimson as before.
That meant the absorbed power wasn't affecting Rebecca's essence at all.
"You shouldn't overdo it."
Rebecca withdrew the tentacles she had embedded in the shadows and extended her palm toward Caron.
"...I'll give it back."
THUD!
With a sound like air bursting, a huge hole was punched through the shadows like a stone falling into ink.
The sound was small, but the result was absolutely not small.
CRUSH! CRUSH!
The bodies of other gods caught up in that power began to be crushed and disappear just like that.
"N-no!"
"To reverse-utilize Caron's power..."
"Just what kind of monster have you created!"
All the gods including Blamir were reverse-summoned back to the heavenly realm, leaving only one comment each.
"Ahhh! Ahhhh!"
But Caron, the only one who withstood Rebecca's attack, gasped within the shadows and muttered in disbelief.
"D-divinity, damaged...!"
The shadows writhed in pain.
Though he hadn't taken the opponent lightly, he had still thought he could handle them fairly easily...
"...Ugh."
Rudian also let out a dumbfounded sound in disbelief.
He had expected to engage in something resembling proper combat against a high-ranking god, but Rebecca and Maria's growth rate far exceeded Rudian's expectations.
Who would have thought that named god Caron would become such a rag in just two moves!
'At this rate, won't Princess Luciella and Gray also return as monsters?'
With this, wouldn't the battle with extraterrestrials that Rudian considered his greatest difficulty also flow quite smoothly?
...Even before that thought finished, the wounded Caron began to draw upon divinity and spread his shadows once again.
"I was... a bit careless... but the result doesn't change!"
"...What a cockroach-like bastard."
As expected, even though he took a big hit, it seemed he avoided a fatal blow.
-My annihilation is due to the backlash of causality, not because I was defeated by the likes of you!
FREEZE!
When Caron truly put forth his full power, Maria's time freeze was broken just like that.
-Die, humans who threaten the seat of gods!
'This is... a bit dangerous?'
The shadows that had been encroaching on the ground soared toward the sky and began to form spirals.
Not destroying everything, but a spear of silence that devours everything.
-Mistiltein!
Caron's signature technique that had ground up an entire demon legion during the Heaven-Demon Great War was fired toward Rudian's party.
"No, don't use something like that with the name Caron!"
That's from Norse mythology!
"What nonsense are you spouting!"
"That's a thing!"
Rudian activated the Black World along with complaints that Caron couldn't understand at all.
At the same time, Maria stepped in front of Rudian and drew up the power of the Green World.
"I'll stop that spear's movement! Rudian, identify that bastard's main body and finish it!"
"Okay! Rebecca, follow me!"
"Yes!"
Rebecca followed behind with a bright smile at Rudian's call.
Though it seemed too carefree for such an urgent atmosphere, Rebecca steadily activated the Red World that had become her heart.
Woong, woong, woong!
Following the Black World and Green World, even the Red World...
Three Colorful Worlds began to resonate.
The resonance of three whole Colorful Worlds.
The aftermath born from those waves was something even Rudian hadn't anticipated.
"...Huh?"
"Wh-what is this!"
Rudian, who had been about to charge at Caron's main body, hurriedly stopped in place at the rapidly amplifying resonance of the Colorful Worlds.
"Oops!"
An accident occurred where Rebecca, who had been following behind, buried her face in the back of Rudian who had suddenly stopped, but Rudian had no time to worry about such trivial matters.
Woong, woong, woong, woong!
Three Colorful Worlds that had never resonated even once since creation.
Just from the aftermath of that resonance, the Mistiltein that had been flying toward them began to be helplessly torn away like packaging being peeled off!
"This is... what kind of phenomenon is this?"
Even Caron, who had lived for hundreds of thousands of years, was experiencing this phenomenon for the very first time in his life.
The resonance of the Colorful Worlds that had devoured Mistiltein crashed into Caron's shadow just like that.
Caron's body, which had been dyed by shadows and become a 'phenomenon', began to break free from the shadows and reveal human form as if being washed away by rain.
"C-causal regression? How can you use the power of the Creator God that only Master Berus can wield...!"
Caron, who had returned to human form once again, spoke with his vocal cords rather than spirit words and was shocked.
'Of course it's because the Colorful Worlds are fragments of the Creator God.'
...Though he wanted to say that, this resonance of the Colorful Worlds that could also be called a rampage was power that far exceeded Rudian's expectations.
'S-something feels like I shouldn't leave this as is?'
Though they had subdued Caron quite easily with the resonance of the Colorful Worlds, Rudian's instincts realized that if the situation continued like this, something irreversible would somehow happen.
That's when it happened.
CRACK!
The sky suddenly split open, and golden dawn light began to squeeze through the gap and burst into the world.
And through that split space, a massive and brilliant 'golden sword' burst out and was fired toward the ground.
BANG!
"Keuhuk!"
The destination of that sword was none other than the body of Caron, who had returned to human form.
In this suddenly occurring abnormal situation, with everyone frozen...
"That was close to disaster."
Through the split sky, a blonde girl flapping twelve pairs of wings slowly revealed herself.
"Heu, keuheheheh!"
Rudian felt no need to specifically identify which of the heavenly realm's archangels that angel was.
Just seeing Diablo's insane laughter naturally provided the answer.
"She's come. It seems a bit late, but well..."
Raihon, who had been watching the situation from outside, breathed a sigh of relief at the appearance of the girl who had split the sky.
The blonde girl continued speaking as she slowly descended to the ground.
"To see the earth in such chaos the moment I awaken, truly deplorable. It feels like the efforts of the past 10,000 years have become futile toil."
"Keu, keueu!"
"Moreover, the moment I take on the mission of descending to earth, the first thing I encounter is that cursed Diablo bastard... Ah, my fate...!"
While emitting brilliant divine light that would make all kneel, the words that came from the girl's mouth somehow greatly resembled the sorrows of a weary office worker.
After complaining like that for a while, the girl finally managed her expression and began to 'work'.
"Shadow god Caron, receiving offerings from humans for activity is one thing, but trying to destroy the earth that you should protect as a member of the pantheon is an absolutely intolerable disgrace. Your superior Master North won't be free from this responsibility either."
"Th-thiiiik!"
"Moreover, the waves of the Colorful Worlds' resonance nearly flowed out to extraterrestrial space."
'Ah...'
Rudian finally realized the identity of the unease he had been feeling.
When the girl gestured once, the golden sword that had pierced Caron was pulled out as if caught by telekinesis and returned to its master.
"Caron, your sins have already become irreversible. Therefore..."
FLUTTER!
Twelve pairs of wings spread across the world carrying mighty divine power!
"According to the pantheon's decision, I, Archangel Uriel, will judge you."
One of the Four Great Angels who had sealed Diablo and fallen into slumber for 10,000 years, Uriel, revealed herself for the first time.